It's not just the cars it's the people...and that motto really showed last night in the wee bit of spritz mother nature laid upon us for the second year in a row....seriously can't someone put in a good word with her - we are doing some good here people. Anyway let's move along in the story shall we.

Capital Grille's parking lot starting filling up at 5:15 and thanks to our dedicated parking attendants (a round of applause please) who braved the weather, we ended up parking 185 Porsches, 3 more than last year. The Grille supplied a much needed bigger tent, along with choice eats, while Wendy and her entourage checked in the crew, sold some raffle tickets, and handed out Phil-a-frunk flags provided by Beam Suntory and Toki. Then at 7:30 it was wheels up as we say.

Valley Forge Volunteer Fire Company led the way once again as Upper Merion Township Police gave us safe passages to route 76. Kudos to both organizations for jobs well done. The line of Porsches stayed single-file all the way to Philadelphia; though a 2 by 2 formation would have seemed more appropriate, you know that' s how they entered the ark. Well mid-way down 476, Brent Porche, a WMMR DJ that was my co-pilot last year, called me in route to tell me the 76'ers game that was supposed to start at 7pm was just cancelled and the 12 fans...I mean 12 thousand fans who showed up to watch the game were now leaving the game....the storm got worse.

We had to change gears in mid-route and try to snake 185 cars to the "S" lot which was next to Citizen Bank Park. Not an easy feat mind you but I tried my best to gather our herd amidst the rain and surrounding chaos that was the first ever cancelled Sixer Game....just our luck. On top of it all the Jeeps were still unloading their haul when we got there because of the first ever Sixer's game cancellation (i think i might have said that already...as well as it was raining the entire time). In the back of my mind I kept hearing this thought pounding louder and louder...damn there are a lot of Jeeps here.

Once the Jeeps left...they certainly had many more than last year , I ran back to the "S" lot to gather our soaked crowd. And finally at 8:40 we started to unload. Then it started to rain again...and I mean rain...like "I don't think the heavy stuff's gonna come down for quite awhile", hard (a Caddy Shack reference) . As we started to unload I heard the Jeepster complaining that we all didn't drive our Porsches, some of us had their support vehicles, which is fine by me, remember our motto from above. But when the Jeepster see a truck's bed compressing the springs with over 2000 pounds of food or a 300M with 360 pounds of cans, they started to get nervous. They didn't have to be nervous.

Most of us were in their comfy cars as the skies opened up and the true heroes of the night were the ones emptying out our cargo holds without any sort of umbrella or rain gear. (another round of applause please...hell please stand up and cheer). An hour later our last car came but all was not done...one of our members went over to the Acme tent and bought some icing on the cake, or scale in this case, an additional $1000 in food that went towards our totals of the evening (applause again please).

When all said an done we set out and accomplished our goal...to help feed the less fortunate who struggle to put food on their plates everyday. So the Jeeps came and went...and remember that thought in the back of my head...turns out there were way more Jeeps than last year, and some even towed trailers filled with food. Gulp. Riesentoter only had 3 more cars than last year...not a very big gulp but again we still showed in the rain (damn this sounds like last year's story all over again). Now the math does add up here...more Jeeps means more food, much needed food - please remember that fact. We had just a few extra Porsches (yes the Jeepster will point out not all Porsches blah blah blah). The Jeeps also upped their average pounds per vehicle from last year as well. Do you see where this is going? Okay let's cut to the chase....Riesentoter brought in 97 pounds just shy of 10 tons....10 tons people. I couldn't not be prouder of our members.....19,903 pounds to be exact. A ton more than last year. That's 10 times what the first Camp out for Hunger brought in. Stand up and take a bow, pat yourselves on the backs, and go dry off. Now the other tale of the scale.....Jeeps averaged 101 pounds per 4x4. They had more Jeeps than last year. Doing the math, the Jeeps brought in a whopping total that everyone can be proud of.....14,355 pounds of much needed food. So as Jaxon would say once again "the Porsche club just edged us out by two and a quarter tons". Now I lied a bit, our total was actually 19,905 pounds but I saved a 2 pound can of crow for Jaxon.

Between the two clubs, 14 tons of food, that's enough food to feed everyone at a Sixers game for an entire season, ok maybe not that much but it will be used throughout the year by families and individuals who really need it. I want to thank everyone involved, Preston and Steve, the Camp Out for Hunger volunteers, Jaxon and his Jeep Clubs, Brent Porche, Valley Forge, Upper Merion, Capital Grille, Beam Suntory, Porsche of Conshohocken, Delaware, Lehigh Valley, Main Line and Warrington, FabSpeed....and of course you....you made it all possible....in the rain...in the rain again......damn I really have to work on that for next year.